


A Real Romance

by cnoocy



Category: Numbers (Anthropomorphic)
Genre: Academia, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Fictional Religion & Theology, Other, Real numbers, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-15 03:18:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13022133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cnoocy/pseuds/cnoocy
Summary: When 4,755.7388... comes into -8,842,068.4760…'s coffee shop while on a field research trip, neither of them are expecting love to bloom.





	1. -Seodaqa

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ariesspicy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariesspicy/gifts).



> The notes at the end of the work are a glossary of definitions.

Dear Diary,

I've settled in here in the -628,689 neighborhood. I'm not “the new number at the coffee shop” anymore, I'm just -Seodaqa down the way. Nofigure knows my secret, and I feel safe. But I'm lonely. Maybe safe isn't all I want to be.


	2. +Hax

Having arrived in the neighborhood of -628,689, or as the locals call it, -Ooqisi, I found a local coffee shop. As I approached the door, however, I was accosted by the familiar sight of an Evangelical Unitarian.

“Excuse me friend, can I ask if you have a personal relationship with the number One? Its Unity is great and will cancel out your heresy and leave you constant and undivided!”

I once spent a month with an Evangelical Unitarian community up in Cqmaszf (813,430,103), so I was tempted to stop and compare my new friend’s specific beliefs with what I learned about there, but they were clearly on missionary work and I was in the area to learn about local beliefs, so I just took a pamphlet and made my way into the shop.

The barista (-Seodaqa, according to their name tag, and clearly not from the neighborhood) smiled. “I'm impressed,” they said. “You're more polite than most numbers that find themselves having that conversation.” 

“I don't mind,” I said. “And they gave me a pamphlet. Now I can find out...“ I took a closer look at the cover. “...what the number One has planned for me.”

They laughed. “What can I get for you?”

“Some cappuccino and a muffin, please,” I replied. 

“Can I get a name for that order?”

“Hax.”

“-Hax?”

“No, just Hax.”

“You're from above the origin?” I couldn't tell if they were suspicious or impressed. 

“I’m pretty sure that you're from farther away than I am.”

“That's right. I'm -8,842,068.4760…, pleased to meet you. “

“4,755.7388… and happy to make your acquaintance.”

“I mean, I may be more than eight million away from home, but things get a lot more significant changes as you get closer to zero. Also a bunch of the figures around here are Nihilists, and making the pilgrimage to the origin is a pretty big deal for them. The last figure to come back from there had a little set of followers for months.”

“You sound like you were less impressed than they were.”

“I'm impressed by the trip. I'm less impressed by the need to turn it into some sort of local fame. If you're making a pilgrimage you should do it for yourself.”

“Is that what brings you this way? Are you a Transcendentalist? An Euleran?”

-Seodaqa blinked and smiled. “That- that's not first-cappuccino information. Here's your drink and your muffin, +Hax. See you around.” They turned to talk to the next customer and I left with my order.

I left with my cappuccino and muffin, both of which were excellent I had read that Nihilism was popular below the origin, but it's useful to get first-hand confirmation of the prevalence of Zero-worship. -Seodaqa seems to know a lot about local beliefs for a non-native. I will have to cultivate a relationship with them as a local informant.


	3. -Seodaqa

Dear Diary,

I can’t believe I got into a conversation about religion of all things. What was I thinking? Maybe +Hax is just passing through and I'll never see them again. That would be safer and I could stop panicking about my secret. 

So why does the thought of that make me feel so sad?


	4. +Hax

I returned to the coffeeshop in the morning to find -Seodaqa setting up the counter. 

“Hi there, stranger. Cappuccino and a muffin coming up.” I saw them write “+Hax” on the cup. “So, are you staying around long?”

“Seven weeks or so,” I replied. After that I need more funding.”

“You're getting paid to visit -Ooqisi? What's here that anyfigute would want to study? We don't have any natural wonders. There's some talk about putting a marker around -10,000 Tau, but that's almost three hundred away.” They continued making my drink as they talked. 

“I’m not here for the sights. I’m here for the numbers. I’m a Cultural Arithmologist studying religious movements.”

There was a splash as my cappuccino hit the floor. “Sorry! I’m a klutz sometimes. Take a seat and I’ll clean it up and bring you over a new drink.”

I sat down and started taking some notes. After a few minutes, -Seodaqa came to my table with a cappuccino and another number, who had the look of a local. 

“I figured you could start your work right here. This is 'si.Qanajezi, who is from -Ooqisi.” -Seodaqa deposited my drink and returned to the counter. 

“Are you the figure who's asking about religions?” asked ‘si.Qanajezi. “I have a lot to say about religions.” 

As I am a student of religions and not of psychology, I will summarize the opinions of the esteemed -Ooqisi.Qanajezi (-628,689.5490383591…) on the subject of religions with illustrative quotes rather than transcribing our entire conversation:

  * Personal beliefs: Rationalist. “The rationals just seem like real Real numbers to me. They seem approachable.”
  * Other religions: Generally favorably disposed. “I'm married to a Radical, we have a √ on the door and everything. And I have friends of all kinds of faiths.”
  * Tauism: Suspicious, but supportive. “I get the appeal of simplifying the equations, but as a Negative, I don't get the same good feeling from eiτ = 1 as I do from eiπ = -1. Some of the locals are putting up eiτ \+ -1 = 0 signs and I get a chuckle from those. Plus it annoys the Evangelical Unitarians. Heh.”
  * Heresy: Dismissively angry. “I can put up with a lot, but that's just stupid. Pick a number, or set of numbers, whatever. I have a buddy who swears by the quaternion unit sphere. But not knowing who you pray to, that just calls your judgment into question in general. It’s like they’re praying to nofigure! I'm sure glad we don't have any heretics around here.”



I thanked 'si.Qanajezi for their time and took a note of the name of their Quaternionist friend. I had long finished my breakfast and I looked around for -Seodaqa, but their place at the counter had been taken by another number. I gathered my things and left…

…to find -Seodaqa themself waiting outside by the door. 

“Hey, +Hax. I'm on the breakfast and evening shift, so I'm going to get some errands done while I can. Are you headed this way? Would you like to walk together?”

I checked my notes. “I am in fact headed that way to interview somefigure, and that sounds lovely, -Seodaqa. I’m not in much of a rush.” We walked on through the neighborhood. “How was the morning shift?” I asked.

“All right. Busy, but not too busy. I’m happy to be skipping the lunch rush, but the evening is likely to be wild. So, what's it like crossing the origin?”

“It's... overwhelming. Everything gets more and more significant the closer you get. I got as far as Seven and took a bus. Even that was pretty wild with travelers of all sorts leaning out the window to print at the sights, calling out shouts and prayers when we passed integers and other significant points. The whole stretch from One to Zero is just cacophony inside and outside the bus. And then we crossed the origin and there was this sudden drop in activity, and it got quieter and quieter as we went. The bus dropped us off just below -√2 and I came the rest of the way on my own.” 

We had reached the bank, and -Seodaqa opened the door for me. “I can't imagine making that trip. So many significant numbers. I would feel like they were all looking at me.”

“When I've talked to people who have lived close to the origin, they say that the significance makes it easier to be themselves. Everyfigure is so focused on other things that they don't have time to be offended or outraged by their neighbors.”

-Seodaqa looked thoughtful as they handed their bank book and what looked like a paycheck to a teller. “I've noticed that even from living here. At home I felt like everyfigure was trying to figure out the smallest difference, but here I’m just that big number from far away.” We left the bank and continued next door to the telegraph office, where there was a line inside. “I’m going to send a cable back home now, and it looks like it will take some time. You should go do your interview and I’ll see you later.” They leaned over and kissed me on top of my thousands place before turning to go, leaving me dazed on the sidewalk. 

The rest of the day I felt like a rough approximation of a repeating decimal. I know that I interviewed the Quaternionist because I have a recording, but all I remember is thinking about that kiss. Thank π (yes, I am a Transcendentalist) that I managed to ask decent questions. But mostly I thought about returning to the coffee shop at the end of the day. When I went by later, though, the shop was very busy, so I waved and then went off to a nearby restaurant to have some dinner. 

I got distracted catching up on paperwork over my dinner, so I didn't notice the passage of time until somefigure sat down across from me at my table. I looked up to see -Seodaqa perusing a menu.

“I figured you had grabbed some food somewhere so after we closed up I went looking for you.” They ordered a slice of cake for dessert with two spoons, and turned back to me. “Cake?”

After dessert, as we were leaving, they turned to me. “Can you come back to the coffee shop with me? There's something there I want to grab.” 

I followed, and we stepped into the darkened shop. As they closed the door behind us, I asked, “What's in here that you want to get, -Seodaqa?”

“This,” they replied, and pressed against me, ones place to ones place, decimal point to decimal point. I could feel the mass of their much larger absolute value against me, and a corresponding warmth rising from my infinite lower digits. We kissed for several minutes just like that. 

“I've been thinking about doing that all day, -Seodaqa,” I said hoarsely. “Have you?” 

“You know I have.” -Seodaqa was not speaking calmly either. They pulled me against themself. 

We kissed frantically, our digits all over each other. I unbuttoned my ellipsis down to the sixth digit. 

-Seodaqa paused. “Can I trust you?”

“Yes. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” they said, and loosened their ellipsis further. Two ribbons wrapped around their 10th decimal place, crossing in the middle. An x.

“You’re a heretic?” I whispered.

“I prefer ‘Agnostic.’ The unknown number, that could be any of us at any time, that’s to me what e and 2√2 and π are to you. Do you still want me, +Hax?”

“Oh, -Seodaqa, yes.” I reached for them, our lower digits pressing against each other. I moaned softlty as -Seodaqa found my ten-billionths place. 

“Is it okay if we stay above the quadrillionths?” I asked.

“Of course!” they said. “Though I may have some fantasies about further explorations.” They kneaded my trillionths place, releasing some stress I didn’t know I had.

I kissed them. “You can fantasize all you like. I have a weird run of sevens a hundred digits down around my googolths, so I hope that doesn't ruin your idealized image of me.”

“How exciting! Something to look forward to someday, I hope.” Their laugh got less controlled as I rubbed their hundred-millionth place and then we spent some time not speaking.

I kissed them and asked, “Would you like to come back to my boarding house?”

They kissed me back and started to button their ellipsis. “I can’t. I have an early shift, and I’ll sleep better in my own place. I’ll see you tomorrow,” they said, sending me off to sleep blissful dreams.


	5. -Seodaqa

Dear Diary,

I'm writing this very late after coming home from a very nice evening with +Hax. All I can say is that went a lot better than I expected. Now I need to sleep and dream about seeing them in the morning.


	6. +Hax

The morning dawned with beautiful light that brought a deep sense of well-being. That lasted all the way to the parlor of the boarding house, where there was a cabled message waiting for me:

To Hax:

The committee overseeing your program has determined that the Cultural Arithmology department has been funding too many trips that provide limited academic value. We are therefore compelled to end your current expedition unless you can provide evidence that your research will produce information on some religious movement that has been insufficiently understood. Please either provide this evidence or return to the University as soon as possible. 

I read and reread the letter, sitting unbelieving on the parlor sofa. I couldn't leave now. I had just gotten here. I had just gotten settled in my room. I had just started to research the area. 

I had just connected with -Seodaqa. 

What could I do? I was falling for -Seodaqa. Had fallen, if I was going to be honest about it like a good arithmologist. I couldn't just leave.

I had two real pieces of evidence I had collected. The first was the interview with the Quaternionist. Certainly not a common belief, but not unheard-of. Also, as I had already learned from my interview, this wasn't a whole religious movement. It was more of a quirk of an otherwise fairly unremarkable number. The committee would not consider them worth extending my funding. 

The other was -Seodaqa's Agnosticism. The committee would fall over themselves for direct interviews with an Agnostic. But publishing anything I had learned from -Seodaqa would risk not only exposing them, but also providing information that those who dislike Agnostics could use to expose them. I put the letter in my bag and left for the coffee shop. 

The coffee shop had been open for some time. I had slept late, but -Seodaqa clearly had not. They greeted me happily, but noticed that I was troubled. “What's wrong?” they asked. 

“I don't want to hold up the line. Come talk to me when you get a break.”

They yelled to the manager, “Hey ‘si.Pinaqi! I'm taking my break right now.” They grabbed another muffin for themself and walked with me to a table. “What's up?”

I pulled out the letter and handed it to them. I ate a piece of my muffin while they read. When they spoke again, their voice broke. 

“Does this mean you have to leave right now?”

“I'm going to write up my notes on the Quaternionist I interviewed yesterday and send that to the committee. They won't buy it, but their not buying it will buy me some time. I don't know what I'm going to do in the long term, though.” I leaned against them sadly. “Want to know want the worst part is?”

“Sure. Maybe it will make me feel better.”

“From an academic point of view, I'm not even sure they're wrong. I wanted to write about the religious movements of so-called 'normal’ neighborhoods. But that's not necessarily going to produce groundbreaking scholarship. I don't have a shattering discovery to write about.”

“That's not quite true.” -Seodaqa tapped a digit to their ellipsis and the hidden symbol that lay beneath. 

“I hope the days of arithmologists making intimate connections with their subjects just to reveal their deepest secrets are behind us. Regardless, it's not something I'm going to do.”

They gave me a discreet kiss. “I'm glad to hear it. Someday some public figure will profess my belief, but I'm not volunteering.”

“We have a day or so to think about it, anyway.” 

“In that case, we should go do something today. My shift is done after lunch, if you're free then.”

“If I stay here and finish writing up and sending this evidence, that will take me until lunch anyway.”

A couple of hours later we were standing in front of the coffee shop. “So what should we do?” I asked. 

“There's a park down the way at -628,689.125 that I like. Let's go for a walk there.”

The park was not grand in any way. It wasn't full of natural wonders like the tower of factors at 6,469,693,230 and it didn't have fancy monuments like the statue of Ramanujan at 1729. It was just a simple, calm, relaxing neighborhood park. We sat under a tree and looked up at its branches. 

-Seodaqa turned to me. “What do you want to do with the next, say, twenty years?” they asked. 

I thought for a minute. “I'd like to get my Arithmology doctorate. Then maybe go do field research much farther out from the origin. Maybe even in the complex plane. What about you?”

They stared up toward the top of the tree. “I always thought I'd find some place where I felt like I belonged. Then I discovered Agnosticism and it just felt right to me, but that pretty much means it will be a long time until I find someplace where I really fit in. If there's some place where Agnosticism is common or even tolerated, I haven't heard about it.”

“Me neither. My university is pretty tolerant, but we don't have an Agnostic student group. Sorry.”

“I knew when I started calling myself an Agnostic that it meant giving up some things. It means a lot that you've been so accepting. Thank you.” They rubbed my tens place with a few of their digits. “Would you like to go back to my place and play with each other's places?”

I stood up and took their digits in mine. “You don't have to ask me twice, or π times, or any more than once.”

-Seodaqa's apartment was larger than my room at the boarding house, but not by much. “I know it's not much,” they said. “I spend most of my time at the coffee shop or just out and about.” I noticed a copy of _Major Religious Beliefs of the Number Line Within a Quadrillion from the Origin_, the standard introductory textbook in my field. -Seodaqa saw me notice it, and said, “That book only discusses Agnosticism in passing, and only to condemn it, but it was my first exposure to the concept, so when I left home I bought a used copy to bring with me. Otherwise I live almost like a monk. A monk who can't safely even put a shrine up in the corner.”

“I would like for you to have a place you could put up a shrine. Not least from my academic curiosity about what you'd put on it.”

They laughed. Then they kissed me. We fumbled at our ellipses trying to put more and more of our digits in contact. I could feel the energy between us grow as our figures joined and multiplied.

-Seodaqa rolled over so that they were below me. “+Hax,” they moaned, “exponentiate me.”

“I would love to. Are you sure?”

“I know… I know it's different with a negative number.”

“I've never exponentiated anyfigure before. You'll be my first.”

“I’m honored. Here, we’ll go slow and I’ll help you.”

-Seodaqa held me steady as I climbed on top of them to raise them to the power of me. It took us a moment to get the position correct, but then–

The feeling was unreal, too complex to describe. I felt like we were split into infinite pieces and scattered into a shining imaginary circle in strange dimensions. This was far beyond anything that could be done with mere addition and multiplication. Time seemed to stand still as we floated in ecstacy. 

Then -Seodaqa said, “I can feel that run of sevens,” and I tumbled down laughing.

I stretched out next to them. “I love you, -Seodaqa,” I said.

“I love you too, +Hax,” they replied, their voice breaking slightly. “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.” We stared glumly at the ceiling, nervously rebuttoning our ellipses. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it now, though.”

-Seodaqa stretched and got up. “You’re right. There’s not anything we can do about it right now. So let’s go get some dinner instead.” They laced their digits through mine and pulled me out the door.

All I remember from dinner is staring at -Seodaqa. We said goodnight at the door to my boarding house and I fell into fitful sleep.


	7. -Seodaqa

Dear Diary,

What am I going to do? I know I've only known +Hax for about e days, but I already feel like life without them would be miserable. How quickly I've gone from a safe lonely number to a dangerously happy figure, and this time tomorrow I'm likely to be safer and lonelier than ever before. 

Oh X, unknown that could be any number, please solve this equation. Let me know what value of this situation will keep an exponentially increasing love from being divided by two!


	8. +Hax

The morning brought the expected cable from the University that my evidence was insufficient and I must return immediately. It was accompanied by a note from the proprietor of the boarding house that since the University had stopped any future payments on my account, I needed to be out of my room by midday. I packed up my few possessions and went in search of my love at the coffee shop. 

At the coffee shop only ‘si.Pinaqi was behind the counter. “Good morning, +Hax,” they said. Spotting my bags, they continued, “Was -Seodaqa right? Is today your last day with us?” 

“I'm afraid so,” I replied. “The university cut my funding for further work.” I heard the door behind me and turned to see -Seodaqa entering. Rushing to them, I stopped them in the doorway. “I'm going to stay,” I said. “I'll find some other work and get a place to stay. Maybe I can finish my studies at a local university or apply for a fellowship–” I paused. -Seodaqa was laughing. Why were they laughing?

They paused and then stepped through the door, dragging a suitcase behind them. “Do you think my savings could make your travel budget cover both of us?”

I stood there, moved to speechlessness. 

“I was just getting my deposit back for my apartment and cashing out my bank account. 'si.Pinaqi says they and my other coworkers will take my shifts until they can hire somefigure. And they gave me a larger share of the last tip jar, and a letter of reference. There are coffee shops around 43,721, aren't there?”

I started laughing too. “There certainly are!” We kissed deeply to the cheers of the coffee house and walked out, digits intertwined, into our future.

**Author's Note:**

> #### Glossary
> 
> 1729
>     1729, known as "Ramanujan's Number" after the great mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, is "the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."
> 6,469,693,230
>     6,469,693,230 is the product of the first ten primes. It has its repetitive form because that is expressible as 2001 * 1001 * 323 * 10.
> Complex plane
>     The complex plane is the two dimensional space formed by the complex numbers, which are numbers composed of a real number added to an imaginary number, which are multiples of i, the square root of negative one.
> Euler's formula
>     Euler's formula connects e and i to trigonometry. It is eix = cos(x) + i sin(x) but is often phrased as Euler's Identity, which is eiπ \+ 1 = 0.
> Exponentiate
>     Exponentiation is raising a number to a power. Raising a negative number to a fractional power produces imaginary and complex numbers; raising a negative number to an irrational power produces infinitely many different complex numbers arranged in a circle.
> Googolth
>     A googol is 10^100, or 1 followed by 100 zeros. A googolth is 1 divided by a googol, or 1-100. So a number's googolths place is their 100th digit below the decimal point.
> Names
>     Saying a long number takes a long time, and would get annoying, so numbers use names, converting the values of friends and locations to a base that can be mapped to letters or syllables. Positive numbers tend to use letters, while negative numbers tend to use syllables. (In this case the syllables used in Linear B.) This means that the longer a number or location's name is, the larger its absolute value is. Numbers that live in their home neighborhood will have the same “first” name, so they just use the end of it, followed by some of their name after the decimal point.
> Quaternion
>     The quaternions form a four-dimensional analogue to the complex plane formed by 1 and i. The quaternions are defined as i, j, and k, where i², j², k², and ijk all equal -1. An interesting property of the space formed by i, j, and k is that every point exactly 1 away from the origin is a square root of -1. This is the quaternion unit sphere.
> Radical
>     Radicals are square roots and other roots. They are written with the √ symbol.
> Rational
>     The rational numbers are the numbers that can be expressed as an integer divided by another. There is a rational number arbitrarily close to any irrational number, yet there are infinitely more irrational numbers than rational numbers.
> Real
>     The real numbers are all of the numbers that have no imaginary part. They can be split into the rational numbers (see above) and the irrational numbers, of which there are infinitely more. All of the characters in the story are irrational numbers, living and working various distances from their “homes” on the real number line.
> Religions
>     The religions practiced by the numbers in the story are generally focused on integers and other computable numbers, which are infinitely less numerous than the noncomputable numbers, making them essentially mythical. The names of these religious beliefs may be familiar to non-numbers, but their meanings are entirely numerical.
> Tau
>     A recent manifesto has caused many mathematicians to advocate the use of Tau, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its radius, rather than Pi, the ratio of the circumference to the diameter. The value of Tau is simply 2 times Pi. Advocates of Tau have offered different versions of Euler's Identity, some of which appear in the story.
> Transcendental
>     Transcendental numbers are numbers that are not the solution to any polynomial equation (an equation based on integer powers of x). All transcendental numbers are irrational, but not all irrational numbers are transcendental. The characters in the story are all transcendental numbers, but the Transcendentalists generally worship the mathematically notable transcendental figures.
> X
>     An x is the most common letter used to represent an unknown variable in an algebraic equation.


End file.
